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This site is for assignments completed by students in the Auburn University Digital Media Production in Music Education course.

Topics are listed on new pages in the left margin.


What is the Internet?

Students edit this section of the page to contribute to our collective knowledge concerning how the Internet works.

The Internet is a....
a very useful tool in the classroom to connect teachers with teachers, students, parents, etc. to enhance the classroom learning experience. United streaming is a very useful site that is offered by our web host ( our school district) that offers educational videos to fine arts teachers. It is a great way to assist in creating a unit on Careers in the Arts showing many different artists in many different fine arts related occupations and vocations. All classrooms have access to this site. ( Shirley)
...way to connect people all over the world to share different types of information via computer. (Taylor)

..part of every day life in today's society. It is used in virtually every facet of peoples' lives. People use it to schedule everyday activities, pay bills, organize events, network with others, run businesses, and countless other things. The internet is used for educational, organizational, entertainment, etc. It is amazing to me how, yet again, a certain technology was developed initially for the military and is now in use by the general public, much the same as the interstate system. It is also intriguing how the addition of computers from the start made the internet exponentially more powerful as more computers were added. I am amazed at the wealth of resources available now via the internet and can't imagine 20 years from now what it will be like. (Jamie)

...necessity that has changed the way with live, work, and meet people. It's hard to imagine living without it. (Bonnie)

...The Internet has become an integral part of our daily lives. What began as a simple set of connections between computers sponsored by the government has expanded exponentially into a vast network connecting billions of people worldwide. Never before in history has access to information been so widespread. People in the United States can learn about events happening on the other side of the planet almost as soon as they happen. We can not only learn of events from traditional news media that report online but from any average person who has access to a computer through blog postings, social networking sites, and online media sites such as YouTube. So the Internet is an important tool for providing information. This functions as an expansion of its original purpose. Expanding upon this idea, the Internet provides the medium providing teachers with a multitude of information to be used responsibly in the classroom that would have been practically unimaginable 50 years ago. The Internet can be a great resource if used responsibly. (Chris)

...a tool, if used properly, that can be extremely useful for music educators. The internet is a source for visual and audio media which can be employed in a clasroom setting. When using media taken from the internet it is important to remember that there are always copyright rules and laws that must be followed. As a choral music educator I have used youtube to find full performances of many pieces of music with which I was not previously familiar. The speed at which we use the internet is not always based on operator issues. The factors that contribute to internet speed include: the speed of the server one is using, the speed of your personal (or the clients's) computer, the capacity of the line being used, the number of users online at that particular time, and the routing through crowded or uncrowded systems.

As an example of how useful the internet can be for a music educator, a good website for choral directors is CPDL.org or Choral Public Domain Library. This website contains a vast library of sheet music that can be downloaded for free and reporduced as needed, many pieces also have translations and historical background information. There are also a large number of midi files on this website that allow one to hear an unfamiliar piece via the internet. (Gus)

The internet is the connection of computers all over the world that are are able to talk to each other. In 1983, TCP/IP was a computer language developed for the army for its reliability and soon became the language of the internet. This language breaks information we send into packets of ones and zeros and routes those packets through various connection including cable, telephone, and satellite. In light of the development for the military, it is highly probable that they are already using more advanced internet capabilities which could be later released into the private sector.
Each time we decide to use the internet highway, we come away with a different experience which is based upon the current working speed. Working speed is dependent upon the speed of the client and server, routing, line capacity, and number of users. Accessing the internet with a strong backbone(bandwidth) while the majority of users are offline will ensure quick delivery. However, a reversal of these variables will cause slow, intermittent content delivery. This is much like how a road trip fraught with construction, inclement weather, and accidents will delay a driver's arrival at the destination.
Using the internet to enhance music education is especially exciting for those in more remote locations. By remote, I mean to include foreign lands but also small towns in America where a student's only connection to the arts is ins the music class. Music teachers can access performances by the world's greatest symphonies, bands, instrumentalists, and singers to provide inspiration and motivation for their students who can't attend live performances. Several musicians post pedagogical tutorials on the internet to enhance personal achievement and skills of students. Classrooms are now able to skype with other room and individuals for lessons, interviews, or presentations. Teachers can also use the internet to send their students on a musical treasure hunt in which they gain information about artists, composers, or music associated with traditional people groups from around the world.
The possibilities are truly endless as each generation continues to code new types of information into the language of the internet thereby making it available for the world. (Cameron)

....Great tool that can provide, education, knowledge, communication, organization, entertainment, and connectivity to the world. The internet is used by everyone every day for work and play and makes everyone's life much simpler. The internet can be accessed anywhere through a computer, iPod, cell phone, router, tv, automobile, gaming console, or other sundry different items (Will)

Good Morning;
The internet is a web of interconnected computers all over the world. They communicate through a common language known as TCP/IP. Each computer is a host, and when the host has full internet access they have at least the services of email, ftp (file sharing) and telnet. The internet started as a way to protect important information, so that in case of a massive war, not all data would be destroyed at once. The internet has been a wonderful tool in expanding our classrooms. We can now show our students how to find a wide variety of sources on the internet and allow them to listen to streaming lectures, music, videos and more. Students can also create their own web pages that can compare related works of art, as well as communicate with other students in various areas of the world through teleconferencing. As a matter of fact, through our Access program here in Alabama, my instrumental students will enjoy a distance education lecture on "The History of Jazz." The internet is a way to make the world much smaller,and to give our students, as well as ourselves, the means to truly test the limits of our imaginations and make dreams become realities. (Randi)

The internet is me finding out anything I want to know in under 30 seconds. The internet is the reason that I stand staring at the microwave impatiently saying hurry up. The internet is Google taking .1 seconds to find me 1.4 billion answers to the query "What is the internet?" The internet is a way of keeping everyone connected to absolutely everything at all times. (Jeremy)

Uses of the Internet


The Internet and World Politics

Protesters in Egypt have used social networking sites on the internet like Facebook and Twitter to organize protests in early 2011. On January 28th, 2011 the Egyptian government shut off internet service in an attempt to quell protesters. While governments now have the power to shut off internet service, the rise of wireless connectivity may make that impossible in the future. (Mike)